Mail-canceling machine.



.' No. 551,332. Patented lune I2, 1900. s. E.P ETTEE.

MAIL GANCELING MACHINE.

(Application filed Oct, 14, 1898.) Modem 4 Sheets-Sheet l4 AITEET v INYENTEIFI' .HTI'Y ma uanms vsrzns 00., PHOYQLITHO. wnsumawn, o. a.

N o. 65I,382. Patented lune [2, I900. 8. E. PETTEE.

MAIL CANCELING MACHINE.

(Application filed Oct. 14, 189$.) (No Model.) 4 Sheets-Sheet 2.

INvEN-r m? ad i BY 7% VVMJM/ ATTEE'T HTTY/ No. 651,332. Patented lune l2, moo.

- s. PETTEE.

MAIL CANCELING MACHINE.

(Application filed Oct. 14, 1898.)

(No Model.) 4 Sheets-Sheet 3.

\o INVENI'T m ATTEET v Q 4% Y y /Q K AT Y m: Norms PETERS co, FHQYO-LITHO., WASHINGTON, my C STATES SIMON E. PETTEE, OF CLEVELAND, OHIO.

MAIL-CANCELING MACHINE.

SPECIFICATION formingpart of Letters Patent N 0. 651,382, dated June 12, 1900.

Application filed October 14, 1898. Serial No. 693,487. (No model.)

To all whom, it may concern: I

Be it known that I, SIMON E. PETTEE, a citizen of the United States, residing at Cleveland,in the county of Ouyahoga and State of Ohio, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Canceling- Machines for Post-Offices; and I do declare that the'following is a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, which will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

My invention relates to canceling-machines for post-offices; and the object of the invention is to provide a machine for canceling the stamps on letters and at the same time stamping on the letters the place and date of mailing, the entire operation of feeding, canceling, stamping, and discharging the letters being performed by automatic means, all sub stantially as shown and described, and particularly pointed out in the claims.

In the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 is a plan View of the machine, showing a bank of letters in position to be fed to the printing-roller, one letter being shown as entering the rolls and another as discharging therefrom to the finished bank of letters. Fig. 2 is a central section and side elevation on line 2 2, Fig. 1, enlarged from Fig. 1 and broken awayat its center. Fig. 3 is an enlarged central section of the ink-fount and impressionrollers, with the printing-cylinder in side elevation. This section is taken on line 3 3, Fig. 1. Fig. 4 is an enlarged plan view of the front end of the machine, with parts broken away and in section to more clearly disclose the mechanism beneath said parts. Fig. 5 is a perspective view of the bank blocks.

The work that a machine of this kind is called upon to perform with letters varying so greatly as current letters through a postoffice do in size and thickness and often in unevenness of their bulk owing to contained it has been acknowledged to be difficult to construct a machine which will feed any and all letters rapidly, regularly, and uniformly, print and cancel them as fast as received, and

then discharge them in good condition with the stamps surely canceled and the data printed clearly on the face of the letter. To meet all these'difficulties and to obtain the results desired, four points especially had to be considered, viz: first, that of a feeding device which would adjust itself to the widely- Varying conditions of the mail, so that a :thin or thick, a small or large, letter would 'be delivered to the printing and impression rollers without possible delay; second, that of an ink-fount which would give a sure and unfailing supply of ink to the printing-cyl- .inder and leave a clear-cut impression; third, that of a discharge and impression roller which would yield the results for which it i was designed without injuring the letter or its contents, and, fourth, that of a device which would aline and bank the canceled and printed letters where they could be taken from the machine with ease and without loss .of time and extra labor.

The mechanism for feeding the letters to the printing-cylinder consists, primarily, of the feed-block 2 and feed-roller 3. The feed- :block 2 is designed to feed the entire batch of letters 11 to the left against the plate 12 and the feed-roller 3 to feed singleletters ,from'the batch of letters to the printing-cylinder 5 and impression roller 6. The mechanism for operating the feed-block 2 consists of the long threaded shaft or feed-screw 13, supported in bearings 11 and 15 on the main frame 9. The screw 13 rests upon bearing 14 and passes loosely through bearing 15 and projects beyond the edge of the frame 9 a sufficient distance to support the gear 16, splined thereon. This gear 16 rotates screw 13 by means of the spline; but the screw is free to slide through both bearing 15 and gear 16, and the said gear is held in a fixed position against end play bya plate fastened on the bearing, and which has a depending flange 17 riding in a circumferential groove 18 on the hub of the gear. The collar 19 on the end of the screw limits the movement of the same to the left. At the opposite end of the screw 13 is a loose collar 20, to which a cord 21 is attached, the cord passing from there to a sheave 22, mounted on the frame 9, and thence to a weight 23 to control the backand-forth movement of the screw 13. The

object of the sliding feed-screw 13 and the weight attached thereto is to give a uniform feed for all sizes and thicknesses of letters. All the letters 11 are fed forward by the feedblock 2, which has a feather 24 projecting downward from the block and traveling in the threads of the screw 13 to feed the block along. This feed is constant and of course at uniform speed, the number of revolutions of the screw determining the speed and feed of the block 2. If the letters were all of the same thickness, the screw could be timed to feed the whole batch the thickness of one letter at a time, the feed-roller 3 carrying each away as it was made to come in contact with it, and this feeding could be thus accomplished with easeand uniformity; but as the letters vary in thickness, and at times vary considerably, a fixed feed is out of the question, because if a run of thin letters were to come mixed with thick ones two or more thin ones would be fed at the same time to the canceling device and only one would be canceled. The feed must therefore automatically adjust-itself to either a thin, a medium, a thick, or, in fact, any thickness of letter, and this self-adjustment is obtained by having the screw 13 adapted to slide back and forth while rotating and feeding the feedblock 2 forward, the weight 23 bringing the screw and block forward and quickly feeding a thin letter against plate 12 after a thick one has been discharged, and as the screw is ti med gages a cam 31 on the vertical shaft 32.

for thin letters these are uniformly fed and discharged; but if another thick one comes then the screw slides back and adjusts itself until that letter is discharged also, and so on until each one has been discharged by feed-roller This roller 3 is mounted on an ttpright shaft 25, which is supported on the arm of a rocking lever 26, pivoted at 27 on the frame 9, and a roller 30 on the other arm of said lever en- A spring 33, fastened between the end of the feed-roller arm and an adjustable plate 34 on the frame 9, serves to keep the roller 30 in constant engagement with the catn 31, and gears 35 on the shafts 25, 27, and 32 furnish means to keep the feed-roller 3 in constant rotation. The roller 3 is provided with a rubber tire 36, which comes in contact with the letters through slot 37 in the face of the plate 12 when the rock motion is imparted by the cam 31, and thus the letters are frictionally engaged to insure their forward feed. The letters lie edgewise on the surface of the feeding-box 38, and the ends abut against the face of the guide-plate 39, which is supported and adjustably mounted onthe central rib 40. The end of this plate 39 extends slightly beyond the parallel line of the plate 12 and is bent at an angle about as shown at 41, while the end of plate 12 is retired a sufficient distance front the face of the angle 41 to allow a letter to feed around the end of the angle 41 without injury to its contents. Yet this angle and adjustment is such that the ends of the adjacent letters abut squarely against the face of the angle, while only a single letter-the first one-is fed to the printing-cylinder 5 and impression-roller 6 by the feed-roller 3 when the tire 36 comes in contact with it. A light flat spring-plate 42, fastened to plate 12, rests against the face of the letters as they are fed out, and this spring serves to lead each letter more surely to the bite of the cylinder 5 and roll 6. It is by this arrangement of the foregoing parts that the letters 11 are singly discharged to the printing and canceling mechanism. The printing and canceling mechanism consists of the printing-cylinder 5, impression-roller (i, and ink-fount 4, and these parts are arranged as follows: The printing-.

cylinder is fastened to the vertical shaft 32, which is supported from the main frame by the hanger 43, and this shaft is driven by the bevel-gears 44 and 45. The gear 45 is moun ted on the power-shaft 40, which extends to the rightof the machine andvis driven by pulleys. The printing-cylinder 5 has the type-plate 51, which carries the printing and canceling characters, screwed on its face 52, and the ink-fount 4 has its ink-pad 53 parallel with said type-plate and in such relation that the type can be inked continuously or when desired. The ink-fount 4 is supported to rotate on a vertical stud 54, forming part of the plate 55, pivoted and fastened by screw 56 to the frame 9. Lever 57 serves to throw the ink-fount 4 nearer to or farther from the printing-cylinder, and the friction of the plate against the top surface of the bed-plate frame 9 serves to hold the ink-fount in working relation to the cylinder. A thumb-screw 58, supported in a stud 59, limits the movement of the lever to the right, and, being adjustable, the quantity of ink transferred from the pad 53 to the type can thus be regulated, being more or less according to the position of the lever as set.

The ink-fount has an extended hub on shaft 51, which gives a firm and steady support, and to the end that the fount may be easily rotated ball-bearings 60, pocketed in the hub (31 of the plate 55, are arranged to carry said fount. The bottom and top walls of the fount 4 are inclined from the edge thereof downward and inward, fortning a conical cupshaped reservoir 62, which contains the ink. The vertical wall 63 at its periphery is set in from the extreme edge to form a groove in which layers of felt or other absorbenttnaterial are placed for inking purposes, and said wall 63 is perforated to allow the ink to percolate through to the absorbent pad 53. The fount is filled through the screwcup 64.

It will be seen that onlysufficient ink is required at any time to keep the pad 53 in good condition to ink the type when the machine is running and in use and that if the fount were not constructed to govern the flow while running and to stop the flow when not running the pad would soon become excessively saturated and too gummy to obtain good results. With the construction of the fount as above described the ink is only distributed while the fount is being rotated and is thrown against the walls 03 by centrifugal force. WVhen notin motion, the ink settles in the conical reservoir and does not saturate the pad.

I The impression-roller 6 is located at the right of the printing-cylinderand is mounted to rotate on a stud 65, formingpart of asliding block 66, which is supported in a guideplate 67, screwed to the frame 9. A thumbscrew 68, having a head and boss 69, is screwed into a lug on the plate 67, and a spring 70, supported on the boss and head 69, engages a boss 71 on the sliding block 66 and keeps the roller 6 against the printing-cylinder 5. A thick rubber band or facing 72 forms a cushioned back for the letters as they pass between the printing-cylinder 5 and impres-- sion-roller 6, and the combined cushioning effect of the rubber 72 and spring prevents possible injury to the contents of letters as they pass through the machine, the spring especially taking up the varying thicknesses of letters and accommodating the parts to its contents. The bite of the cylinder and roller is'more particularly located at '73, and the letters are fed and discharged thereby to the wiping and banking fingers 7. The cylinder 5 is purposely reduced over one end, so as to afford room for placing the type and the canceling stamp or device thereon.

The fingers 7 are mounted and fastened on a stud 74, supported on the face of the gear 75, and form segments of a circle bent concentric to the axis of the stud-shaft 76 of the gear 75. An intermediate gear 77, mounted on the frame 9 as gear is mounted, transmits the power derived from gear 35 on the vertical shaft 32, the direction of rotation of the fingers 7 being shown by the arrows.

The letters are received edge up one by one upon the base-board 78, and as the fingers 7 strike them each letter is wiped in and banked back against the other letters already received into the receiving-box 79. Here the letters are held also in vertical position and are banked against the bank-block S, which is merely a heavy wooden block having fingers at each side, that ride in parallel grooves 81 the full length of the receiving-box 79. The weight of the block 8, which rests on the base-board 78, gives friction enough to hold the letters upright and allows the fingers 7 to wipe in letters without too great a resistance.

The feed-screw 13 is driven by the pinion 48 on the power-shaft 46, the intermediate gear 49 on stud 50 transmitting thepower to gear 16. Stamps are generally located in the upper right-hand corner of a letter; but before beginning operations all the letters are alined and arranged to correspond, stamps and faces being assembled alike. Then the entire batch is placed edge up, with the allel line with the printing and canceling type mechanism. The letters now rest edge up on the surface of the feeding-box 38,and the ends abut against the plate 39, the first letter at the left lying against the plate 12. The feedblock 2 is then brought forward to bear against the letters, and the machine is set in motion. The feeding, printing, and discharging begin immediately, the feeding being accomplished by means of the block 8 and feedscrew 13, in combination with the feed-roller 3, which comes into and out of engagement with the face letters as cam 31 revolves. The letters are fed singly and successively around the end of the angle-plate 41 into the bite of the printing-cylinder 5 and impression-roller 6, the letter and the type characters being timed to meet at the proper place for canceling the stamps, &c. The letter is now in the bite of the cylinder 5 and roller 6 and is carried onward without a stop or hitch, the roller 6 yielding to the contents of the letter passing through. The letter is then taken up by the wiping-fingers and is discharged into the receiving-box, where the canceled letters are banked up ready to be removed at any time by the operator. The operation is simple, accurate, and very rapid and without injury to .the letters whatever their variance in size or bulk or other varying condition in the mail as received particularly in our large city offices. In fact, the machine has been built with especial reference to the needs of such offices in the particulars mentioned and is designed to anticipate and overcome difficulties hitherto regarded as practically insurmountable.

What I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

1. The printing and discharging mechanism, a feed-roller to feed single letters to said mechanism, and a feed screw and block to feed a batch of letters to said roller, said screw and block being adapted to meet the varying thicknesses of the letters, substantially as described. I

2. The printing and discharging mechanism, a feed-screw free to slide back and forth in its bearings, a feed-block on said screw, and means to automatically adapt said screw and block to the varying thicknesses of the letters and a feed-roller to feed the letters singly to the printing mechanism, substantially as described.

3. In a machine for canceling letters, a printing-cylinder and an impression-roller, a rotatable ink-fount and an ink-pad about the periphery thereof above the level of the ink therein, substantially as described.

4. In a machine for canceling letters, a revolving printing-cylinder and an impressionroller, a horizontally-arranged ink-fount and an ink-pad thereon, an ink-reservoir in said fount below said pad and open thereto, wherestamps facing to the left and with the letter inverted, which brings all the stamps in parby ink is distributed to said pad by centrifugal force when the fount is rotated, substantially as described.

5. An ink-fount for printing-cylinders having an absorbent pad arranged to come in contact with the type, and an ink-reservoir below the level of said pad and open thereto, to distribute the ink to the pad by centrifugal force, substantially as described.

6. A rotatable ink-fount and an absorbent pad on its periphery, and an ink-reservoir with downwardly-inclined walls leading up to and open to said pad, substantially as described.

7. In a machine for canceling letters, a printing-cylinder, an impression-roller and a spring to hold it in engagement with said cylinder, a rotating ink-fount and an absorbent pad on its periphery, said fount having an inclined wall leading up to said pad and means to rotate said cylinder, fount, and roller, severally, substantially as described.

8. In a machine for canceling letters, inking and discharging mechanism, in combination with a feed-roller, a sliding feed-screw and feed-block, means to slide said screw and block back and forth as the feeding of the letters varies according to their thickness, and means to drive said screw and other mechanism, substantially as described.

9. In a machine for canceling letters, a printing-cylinder and an impression-roller, inking mechanism for said printing-cylinder, a feed-roller to feed single letters, a feed screw and block to feed a batch of letters to said feed-roller, said screw and block being adapted to meet the varying thicknesses of letters, and mechanism to receive and bank the letters discharged from said cylinder and impression-roller, substantially as described.

10. The printing and discharging mechanism comprising a printing-cylinder, a cushioned impression-roller, inking mechanism for said cylinder, and wiping and banking fingers, in combination with a feed-screw free to slide back and forth, a feed-block on said screw, means to automatically adapt said screw and block to the varying thicknesses of the letters, and means to feed single letters to the printing mechanism, substantially as set forth.

11. In a machine for canceling letters, printing and discharging mechanism, means to feed a batch of letters, a detaining-plate for said letters, a guide-plate against which the end edges of the letters abut, a fiat springplate mounted 011 the detaining-plate having its free end bent to bear against the face of the end letters at a point near the end of the guide-plate, and means to feed said letters to said printing and discharging mechanism, substantially as described.

12. In a machine for canceling letters, printing and discharging mechanism, means to feed a batch of letters, a detaining-plate for said letters, a spring having its free end engaging the end letter of said batch, an adjustable guide-plate against which the end edges of said letters abut, the end of said guide-plate projecting slightly beyond the normal position of said spring, and means to feed said letters around. the projecting end of said guide-plate to the printing mechanism, substantially as described.

13. In a machine for canceling letters, printing and discharging mechanism, in combin ation with means to feed a batch of letters, a detaining-plate 12 and spring 42, an adjustable guide-plate 39 having its end 41 bent at an angle and projecting beyond said spring, and means to feed the end letter of the batch around said guide-plate end to the printing mechanism, substantially as described.

14. The printing and discharging mechanism, a feed-roller to feed single letters to said mechanism, afeed screw and block to feeda batch of letters to said roller, said screw and block being adapted to meet the Varying thicknesses of the letters, and a spring and guide-plate to lead single letters from said feed-roller to the printing mechanism, substantially as described.

15. In a letter-canceling machine, a sliding feed screw and block, means to automatically adapt said screw and block to the varying thicknesses of the letters, a timing feed-roller, a letter-detaining plate and spring, an adj ustable guide-plate, a printing-cylinder and impression-roller, inking mechanism for said cylinder, and means to bank the letters discharged from said cylinder and impressionroller, substantially as described.

Vitness my hand to the foregoing specification this 7th day of September, 1898.

SIMON E. PETTEE. Witnesses:

H. E. MUDRA, R. B. MOSER. 

